Memories
are squirming prehistoric creatures
burrowing under my clothes, enlivened
by tea in that mug that matches your eyes,
Revolutionary Road shown on TV,
the airline ticket from our Paris trip
leading to le labyrinthe, feet blistered
trying to make up, cover, lost miles,
there are only ends and no heart-centre.
This love was. Slowly it becomes formless,
drifting, softening, snakeskin-empty,
the part it has played in who I am now
secreted in a pocket of a coat
of courage, which does not match anything
and goes where it wants, maybe to Paris.
Sam Szanto’s poetry pamphlet This Was Your Mother was published by Dreich Press in 2024. Another pamphlet, Splashing Pink (with Annie Cowell), was published by Hedgehog Press and was a Poetry Book Society Winter 2023 Pamphlet Choice (https://www.amazon.co.uk/